Petrol prices 'go up like a rocket but come down like a feather,' AA says

Petrol prices "go up like a rocket but come down like a feather",
the AA has said, as they claim drivers are being short changed.

The AA has claimed motorists are losing out after falling petrol prices were not passed on to them.

Statistics show average petrol prices have gone down from 138.95p a litre in mid October to 135.08p now, with diesel dropping from 143.74p a litre to 141.89p.

The fall in wholesale petrol prices across Europe should have knocked UK pump prices down by 10p per litre, the AA said.

Instead, drivers have benefitted from just a average four per cent fall in prices.

Paul Watters, head of public affairs at the AA, has now said frustrated motorists feel "petrol prices go up like a rocket and come down like a feather" as he calls on retailers to match wholesale prices.

"We had access to wholesale price data which shows that from the beginning of October prices fell by at least 10p a litre. We're only seeing a slow reduction in price [for motorists] to date - about four pence per litre.

"Drivers are not getting exactly a fair deal."

The AA added British drivers were suffering again from ''price postcode lottery'', where motorists in one area can be charged as much as 5p a litre more than drivers a few miles away.

Brian Madderson, chairman of the Petrol Retailers' Association, which represents 5,500 independent forecourts, blamed supermarkets and motorway service stations for keeping the price of fuel high.

Pointing out pump prices for diesel had come down by 3p a litre in line with wholesale costs, he acknowledged fears of "anti-competitive and predatory pricing" for petrol in some sectors.

Mr Madderson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme petrol retailers had complained to the Office of Fair Trading in January about pricing.

"We asked them to make a review because we felt there was certainly a possibility of anti-competitive and predatory pricing out there," he said.

"If you take diesel, the independent retailers which I represent have about 70% of all the high-speed diesel fuelling facilities in the UK. The wholesale price of diesel has come down by about 3p a litre and so have the pump prices.

"They [petrol prices] haven't come down as much as wholesale prices.

"The reason for this, we believe, is that the hypermarkets are hanging up with higher prices than usual.

"There is certainly, we would concede, something very strange when you have got motorway service areas still pricing petrol at 147.5p a litre."

AA president Edmund King said yesterday: ''It should beggar belief that, after the trauma of high fuel prices in the spring, the same thing should happen again six months later. But we are talking about the fuel industry.

''Recent political focus has been on the January fuel duty increase, either ignoring or unaware that duty's ugly sister, unrestrained wholesale prices, has been running rampant in the fuel market.

"This week the Government said it was going to tackle high gas and electricity bills, yet lets drivers and businesses down by not reacting swiftly to runaway wholesale and pump prices.''

On average, the cheapest petrol at the moment is in Yorkshire and Humberside at 134.3p a litre and the most expensive is in south-east England at 135.7p.

Yorkshire and Humberside also has the cheapest diesel at 141.0p with Northern Ireland the most expensive at 142.6p.